In 2014, USA Today analyzed FBI data for a seven year period ending in 2012 and found black men are killed, on average, twice a week by law enforcement in the United States. This data was provided by about 750 different law enforcement agencies across the country.

At times like this, I’m reminded of the saying that all evil people need to succeed is for good people to stand by and do nothing. While there’s a lot of good cops in our communities who have a genuine interest in protecting and keeping us safe, as long as they refuse to protect us against their rogue brothers and sisters, they remain part of the problem.

In February 2015, FBI director Comey underscored law enforcement’s systemic racism in his “Hard Truths” speech given to Georgetown University:

“Let me start by sharing some of my own hard truths:

First, all of us in law enforcement must be honest enough to acknowledge that much of our history is not pretty. At many points in American history, law enforcement enforced the status quo, a status quo that was often brutally unfair to disfavored groups. It was unfair to the Healy siblings and to countless others like them. It was unfair to too many people.

I am descended from Irish immigrants. A century ago, the Irish knew well how American society—and law enforcement—viewed them: as drunks, ruffians, and criminals. Law enforcement’s biased view of the Irish lives on in the nickname we still use for the vehicles we use to transport groups of prisoners. It is, after all, the “paddy wagon.”

He went on to state:

“Much research points to the widespread existence of unconscious bias. Many people in our white-majority culture have unconscious racial biases and react differently to a white face than a black face. In fact, we all, white and black, carry various biases around with us”

When considering all the facts objectively, I have to ask…and I mean seriously…how long did racist police officers think they could continue discriminating against minorities before their targets started retaliating against racist law enforcement policies and racist officers directly?

It wasn’t a matter of if…it was a matter of when.

Don’t get me wrong…if someone’s committing a crime and they get shot by a cop…it’s easier to prove that shooting was potentially justified. However, a traffic stop, and in any other case where there’s no resistance by a black man and cops initiate violence…well…there’s zero excuse for that.

If you read the laws…intentional killing of another human is called murder…not self defense. This is a very simple to understand law…yet, racially biased court systems do all kinds of mental and legal gymnastics to excuse police officer’s racially motivated murders of innocent civilians…even though, in many cases, these minorities were never even suspected of being guilty of a crime.

Further, as a martial artist with a security background, you cannot tell me that law enforcement’s only method of defending themselves is their sidearm. They’re trained in hand-to-hand melee combat, both unarmed and armed. They’re provided with steel batons, pepper spray, stun guns, body armor, cut resistant gloves and backup personnel to ensure minimal risk to their safety.

There exist plenty of non-lethal methods officers could use to incapacitate someone. Further, many officers are former soldiers, with additional combat training.

Yet, these highly trained officers…many of which are in peak physical condition…are so afraid of a black man…that their first line of defense when their feelings are hurt is to draw their weapon and shoot this innocent man to death.

This doesn’t sound like self defense…it sounds like murder committed by a PTSD-ridden psycho with no control of their emotional state backed by a legal system that condones such irresponsible behaviors through it’s complicity.

While I don’t agree violence is the answer, it’s clear that no one is interested in holding these racist cops who continually murder innocents accountable. So the more extreme of our population decided to respond to law enforcement in kind. They took the law into their own hands and showed law enforcement that they can be touched by shooting and killing them.

Further, because everyone has sat on the sidelines for so long and allowed these bigoted evil people to act out their racial hatred toward minorities, the streets will continue to be bloody.

You see, while Dallas may have been the first shots fired against law enforcement…it also served another purpose. It showed the entire country that police can be killed on the streets…it empowered the streets to deal with the police in the same way that gangs deal with each other.

The streets have now realized they vastly outnumber law enforcement and the cops can’t be everywhere…more importantly…one banger can take out more than one cop. To their simplistic mind…this is fair trade.

The police need to return to a protect and serve attitude instead of this overly militarized, mirror-shaded, jacked-booted, oppressive law enforcement style popularized by third world dictatorships.